1582-1701 – A Very Important Period

Carolyn L. Barkley writes on GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com in her article 1752 – A Very Important Date about the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. England and its colonies introduced the calendar rather late, in 1752. The former New Netherland colony, however, had already used the new calendar since the beginning of the Dutch settlement:

"Dutch settlers along the Hudson River in New York and northern New Jersey were already using the Gregorian calendar when they came to America. After 1660, when the English took over the Dutch settlements, the civil and church recorders in Dutch towns continued the use of the Gregorian calendar despite the British government and its use of the Julian calendar for almost an additional one hundred years."

In some parts of The Netherlands, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582, shortly after the new calendar was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII. But it took a long time before the new calendar was used everywhere in the Dutch Republic. The last province to use the Gregorian calendar was Drenthe, in 1701. For well over a century, the old and the new calendar were used side by side in The Netherlands. Many documents from this era had a dual date: 9/19 October 1660. Other documents used abbreviations like O.S., S.V. (stilo vetere) or S.A. (stilo antiquo) for the old style (Julian) calendar, and N.S. or S.N. (stilo novo) for the new style (Gregorian) calendar.

The new calendar was introduced on the following dates:

• Zeeland and Brabant: 25 December 1582 followed 14 December.
• Holland: 12 January 1583 followed 1 January.
• Groningen city: 11 March 1583 followed 28 February. Groningen went back to old style in 1594: 11 November 1594 followed 20 November.
• Gelderland: 12 July 1700 followed 30 June.
• Utrecht and Overijssel: 12 December 1700 followed 30 November.
• Friesland and Groningen (city and province): 12 January 1701 followed 31 December 1700.
• Drenthe: 12 May 1701 followed 30 April.

I don't know when Limburg introduced the Gregorian calendar, but I expect this happened in the 1580s.

Before 1700 the difference between the calendars was 10 days, after 1700 11 days (1700 was a leap year in the Julian calendar but not in the Gregorian calendar).

Years commonly started on 1 January since at least the late 16th century, but there are exceptions throughout the first half of the 17th century. In these cases, the year would start at 25 March, Christmas, or Easter.

The dangers of dating

On an apparently abandoned corner of the web, in the archives of a discontinued newsletter, I found this delightful story about the dangers of dating from secondary sources (tombstones, in this case). Not specific to Dutch genealogy, but certainly worth reading.

Timezones

In my previous post I explained how to interpret times in Dutch acts. Those times were usually local times. That sounds obvious, but local time was really local - every place could have its own time.

In the 18th century, time calculation was usually based on the sun - noon is when the sun is at its peak. With this system, there is a one minute time difference when you travel 17 km (10.5 miles) east or west.

There were some changes in the time calculation after the 1830s (like the introduction of mean time), but every town kept its own time throughout the 19th century. To make matters worse, the railway companies introduced their own time, as they could not handle the different times at each station very well. Towns and cities with a railway station now had two times: local time and railway time. Railway time was equal to Amsterdam mean time (AMT).

Time zones, based on Greenwich mean time (GMT) were introduced in the U.S.A. in 1884, and in Europe in 1892. Neighbouring countries Belgium and England used GMT, Germany used central European time (CET, with a one hour offset to GMT), and in The Netherlands a discussion on the introduction of time zones started. In the mean time, the railway time changed to GMT, some towns followed the railway time, some towns used AMT, some towns used local time, and in most places at least two times were in use.

The discussions and confusion finally ended in 1909, when AMT became the official national time.

Amsterdam mean time was 19 minutes and 32 seconds ahead of Greenwich mean time. In 1937, the time was adjusted by 28 seconds to achieve a twenty minute offset to GMT.

CET was enforced by Germany in 1940, during the German occupation of The Netherlands in the second world war. It is still in use today.

Times in Dutch acts

Dutch acts usually contain the time of birth, death or marriage. In the 19th and early 20th century, times were usually rounded to the nearest half hour, and written in the 12-hour notation. After that, times became more precise, and the 24-hour notation was used.

Whole hours are easy to understand, you only need to know the first twelve numerals: één (or een), twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht (in older acts also agt), negen, tien, elf, twaalf. You can also find these numerals in any Dutch dictionary, or in the Dutch genealogy dictionary. The time will often be written as om .. uur, ten .. uur or ten .. ure: om zes uur, ten zes ure , at six o'clock.

Half hours will have the word half before the numeral of the next hour, and the word uur is sometimes dropped. So om half zes and ten half zes uur (litt. half six) both mean at half past five, and not at half past six!

Modifiers used to distinguish between a.m. and p.m. can be voor de middag, des voormiddags, des voordemiddags (litt. before midday) for a.m., and na de middag, des namiddags, des nademiddags (litt. after midday) for p.m., or they contain the part of day: des nachts (at night), des ochtends or des morgens (in the morning), des middags (in the afternoon), des avonds (in the evening). The prefix des is occasionally (in modern Dutch usually) abbreviated to 's.

Some examples:

des middags ten twaalf uur	noon
des morgens ten negen uur	9 a.m.
des namiddags ten acht ure	8 p.m.
des namiddags te half drie ure	2:30 p.m.

Names of months II

While we are on the topic of month names, let us discuss one other pitfall on this topic. Months have many nicknames, usually related to farming. You are unlikely to see them in genealogical records, and most nicknames are long forgotten. But some of these ancient, almost forgotten nicknames became the official names for the Dutch months in 1809. That did not last long: In 1810 Holland became a part of the French empire of Napoleon and French became the official language, and when The Netherlands regained their independence a few years later, the old names were restored. In records for the years 1809-1810 you will encounter the following names for months: Louwmaand (January), Sprokkelmaand (February), Lentemaand (March), Grasmaand (April), Bloeimaand (May), Zomermaand (June), Hooimaand (July), Oogstmaand (August), Herfstmaand (September), Wijnmaand (October), Slachtmaand (November), and Wintermaand (December).

Names of months

Dutch names of months will not present any difficulties for English readers: Januari, Februari, Maart, April, Mei, Juni, Juli, Augustus, September, Oktober (in older documents usually October), November, December. Slight spelling changes do exist in older documents (in particular, the final -i of some months is often replaced by -ij or -y), but the months will still be recognizable, even if you don't speak Dutch. But there is a catch. Just as in English, the names of the last four months are based on a Latin numeral: septem (7), okto or octo (8), novem (9) and decem (10) - the numbers 7 to 10, for the 9th to 12th month. Sometimes september, october, november and december are abbreviated to 7^ber, 8^ber, 9^ber and 10^ber, or VII^ber, VIII^ber, IX^ber and X^ber. Watch out: 7 and VII mean July, 7^ber and VII^ber (or the genitive 7^bris and VII^bris) mean September! (And the -ber suffix is sometimes barely readable.)